Thursday, September 10th, 2020

The man sings in a high tenor, in English, as he leans against the counter at the cafe on the square. I think it’s a Roy Orbison song. He hears me order. The cashier knows me by now and speaks to me in English even when I try to speak to her in Hebrew. The man stops singing as I step away from the register. “So where are you from? New York?” New Jersey, mostly. “I haven’t been to New Jersey much. I used to live in New York. White Plains. Do you know it? I have a brother there. A plastic surgeon. He used to do everything, women’s whole bodies, you know. Now he does one thing: the men who lift weights, with the big muscles? Their chest muscles grow, but their nipples fall down. He lifts them back up. Big money. I never got big money. I got some, some stocks, but lost most of it. The brokers knew my phone number and wouldn’t answer the phone when I wanted to sell high. Do you want to see the market today? Here, on my phone. Green is growing. Red is losing. Everything today is red. Wow. I did know one woman from New Jersey. Her car broke down in White Plains. Beautiful car. I fixed cars then. I fixed hers. She said if I come down to New Jersey, she would give me the car. She did. I didn’t need another car. I let my workers use it to drive home. Most of them were from Puerto Rico, from the islands down there. But one time, one of my men was driving the car to work. He was a Black man. The police pulled him over. They wanted to see his papers. He reached in his pocket, like this. They shot him dead. Bang. Just like you hear so much now from there. I’m glad that I’ve moved here.” So am I.